


Solitude

by CorundumBleu



Category: Original Work
Genre: Afterlife, Cults, Loneliness, Wassy Wapose, Writing Exercise, written by Ruby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:46:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26330602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CorundumBleu/pseuds/CorundumBleu
Summary: A man finds himself in a barren landscape, playing a game against a mysterious woman as he is forced to confront the decisions he made in life.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3





	Solitude

The landscape was, in a word, grey. Pounding waves and a toneless howling wind drowned out all other sounds. Bulging dark waters threw themselves colorlessly against the slate-colored cliffs, turning in an instant from inky liquid to sooty white foam before disintegrating and sliding languidly back into the wide basin of the sea. Protuberant spires of jagged rock erupted from the surf like the fingers of an enormous hand grasping for purchase on the crumbling coast. 

Atop one such outcropping sat a man. He was not elderly, though nor was he particularly young, and he too looked as though the color had been drained from his person. The booms of the surf below did not seem to disturb him, neither did the stinging gusts of wind nor the chill of the sea spray that clung in droplets to his clothes and eyelashes. This land held an eminent familiarity for the man, though he had never seen such a place during his lifetime. He stood with his back to the ocean, eyes fixed on the flat, shadow-obscured horizon, motionless.

After some time--a few brief minutes? an eon?--a green glow budded in the distance. The man blinked and stirred. This is what he had been waiting for, he registered with surprise, for he had not realized that he had been waiting at all. He was suddenly aware of how alone he was, here is this vast, empty land. This scared him.

The glow was closer now. He could see that it glowed like a patch of mobile sunlight--no, it _was_ sunlight, illuminating a small garden of ambulant jungle. Where the light struck rock, vines and flowers burst from the barren land and tendrils unfurled towards the suddenly radiant sky. As the glow passed on, the plants curled back in on themselves in reverse. Not withering and dying, simply folding back into nonexistence.

At the center of the glade walked an old woman. She looked bent with age, but her stride spoke of an ancient strength. The man watched her approach and began to pick her way up the rock-strewn slope. He fidgeted, nervous without understanding why. 

The woman paused below the summit of the outcropping. “My child,” she called up to the man, gesturing at the lush growth around her. “Do you mind?” He shook his head and she climbed the last incline to join him, the garden keeping pace with her steps. As it enveloped the man, the sounds of the wind and surf died away, replaced with the quiet hum of insects. The air grew warm and humid on his skin, fragrant with blossoms and loam.

“Thank you,” the woman said, lowering herself onto a stone seat offered by the outcropping. It had not been there a moment before. “I do not generally like to meddle in the mindscapes of others, but yours is quite bleak and I have found that a bit of comfort tends to help these conversations. Please, sit.” Another stone seat now existed beside the man. The man gingerly lowered himself onto it.

“Would you be amenable to a game while we talked? I am afraid it is tradition, though the betting of souls is entirely hearsay. Black goes first.” She gestured to the playing board between them. The man could not remember if it had just appeared or if it had been there the whole time and he had simply failed to notice. The board was made up of alternating black and white tiles that tessellated infinitely inward to a central point in an unfathomable spiral. Black and white stones populated the outermost tiles. The man found he already knew the rules.

The man pushed a black tile forward, towards the center. “Who are you?” he asked.

The woman chuckled. “My child, you already know that. You have spent your entire life professing the strength of our bond and wooing people with the secrets you say I revealed to you.” She pushed a white piece forward. “The question is, who are you?”

The man blinked. “I… I am your prophet. I separated the right from the wrong and taught them how to live according to my, um, your principles.” He took his turn, sliding a black stone across the board. “Are you real?”

“As real as the stone we sit upon. Which is to say, as real as you perceive, or at least as real as you fear.” She studied him critically. “You are so full of doubts for one who professes to know Truth.”

He tried to move another piece but found it blocked by one of hers. “I suspect,” she continued, pushing another white stone forward, “that you knew which were lies, but I wonder how deep you had to bury that knowledge.”

The man licked his lips nervously, which were dry despite the moist air. He noticed an opening on the board and moved a piece through it. “I did right by my followers. I lived my own ideals and my Truths kept them content. Happy, even.”

“Happy,” the old woman repeated. “How did you close your ears to their screams when you punished them? You say you lived your own ideals, yet you did not subject yourself to those same tortures.” A white piece captured a tile occupied by a black stone, which melted into the surface of the board.

“Enlightenment requires discipline. The minds of men are low and soiled--I elevated them!” His face was curled into a cruel snarl. “I gave them what no one else could have: visions, transcendent experiences! Without me they are nothing.” Several of his black pieces were nearing the center of the tessellated board where the tiles squeezed together until they were sharp and narrow as daggers.

“What about the ones who tried to leave?” she whispered. She nudged another piece along the perimeter of the board.

The man barked in laughter. “Oh, a few of them tried. Fools. Did they think I’d let them turn their backs on Truth? On _ME_?” He shuddered. “No, it would have been dangerous to be out there in the world without me, all alone!”

“And yet here you are now. All alone.” Suddenly the crash of the waves seemed louder. The man looked up from the board and realized the pool of sunlight was shrinking, drawn back into the woman. Droplets of brine stung the back of his neck and dripped down his collar. He shivered. Had it been this cold before she had come?

“My followers, where are they now?”

“Together. And safe.” Her eyes were calm and sad. “Safe from you.” She pushed back from the table and stood up. The jungle continued to retreat with her, plants collapsing inward into veins of glowing green light which slithered past the woman to form a doorway of golden radiance that hovered in mid air just off the side of the cliff. She paused, one hand on the door and gestured back to the table. “You played fiercely, but your strategy was all wrong.”

The man looked at the board and gasped. The white stones had formed a solid perimeter around the board, the black pieces trapped inside. Even as he watched, the pale stones inched forward, forcing his pieces inward toward the center of that board, that endless spiral of black and white and darkness and endless solitary eternity…

“Wait!” he cried, throwing himself to the ground. Panic shook every inch of his frame. “What will you do to me? Throw me in Hell! I deserve it!”

“My child,” she shook her head sadly. “There is no Hell, and no Heaven either. There is only this.” She gestured to the barren coast. “In life you feared loneliness, so you clung to anything that made you feel adored. You cajoled and lied and threatened to feel less alone, and it only served to spread your isolation to others. Solitude was your Truth, the only thing you ever really understood. Now you are dead.”  


Tears streamed down the man’s face. “Don’t leave me,” he whispered. “Not here, not all alone.” 

“I am sorry,” she said. “I did not craft this prison for you. You built it yourself.” With that, God stepped through the gold doorway and was gone. The luminous portal shrank to a sliver and disappeared, leaving only the gloom and the howling wind.

A man huddled atop the center of his world, whipped by wind and salt. Everything was grey, and would be forever. And he was alone.

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written for the Webcomics Review Write a Story You Worthless Piece of Shit Weekend Jamboree. Thanks to everyone in the community for getting me off my butt and write something!
> 
> Prompt: A charismatic cult leader faces God, and is put on trial for their sins.


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